The Goose Girl
by Ellen Jacee
Summary: An interpretation.
1. Chapter 1

The Goose Girl

She grows.

Not taller in stature, but rather, in capability. Not smarter with facts, but wiser with truths. A princess grows so that her feet fit a Queen's shoes.

She smiles, looking over her flock, and her eyes fill with memories of grandeur, at an expense that only now she understands. Quiet girl, whom no one ever deigned to know – no one ever deigned to know truly, anyway. Quiet girl, who got along by herself, following orders. "Obey thine elders."

Her flock.

Her flock.

Yes, there was, of course, Conrad. Every day, tending the geese with her. But he always ran off, and there wasn't much work to do anyway – time yielded introspection. Time yields introspection.

Her hair hangs down, past the small of her back, and she half wishes she could simply cut it off. But it is a tie to reality. Tie to the past. Tie to herself.

The geese. Her flock.

She tends them by a stagnant pond, yet for all that it is stagnant it is beautiful. It is diamond, and she knows that before she brings chaos and sounds and flurries and currents, it is flat. Flat. It reflects the light in a perfect mirror, unless one leans to the perfect angle – the critical angle, she knows from her past tutoring sessions that have ended up meaning naught – where the whole pond floor becomes visible.

She plays with the light in this way. She plays with vanity, takes down her yellow hair, braids it, winds it around her head in what she dreams of as the fashion of gentility.

Once was.

Past life.

Her wisdom grows, and she begins to see people. She begins to realize, but still she clings to a past that is no longer. Since when must people work to survive? Since when have food and clothing been such issues? She drops her plaited hair, and it falls flat against her back. She looks into the water, sloshing with winged bodies and dirty feathers.

She giggles.

--

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

The Goose Girl

She feels.

Not the elementary feelings of a child, denied a toy. Nor the false feelings of a courtier. Nor the incorrect feelings that come with misunderstanding. Her feelings are true – belonging and pure.

Her frayed shoes tap the cobblestones.

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

She looks up, her eyes laden with that pure feeling – that unadulterated sorrow. She opens her lips just wide enough to speak a phrase. A pretty phrase, a feeling phrase, it lacks all regret, for regret belongs only to those who have done wrong, and she has not.

"_Alas, Falada, hanging there!"_

It echoes, and in her mind, the echoes are not softening the original outcry, but emboldening it, making it stronger, louder, until she herself cannot hear the words she had originally uttered, but only the echo, which takes on a new voice, a new chant…

"Alas, Falada, hanging there…"

_"Alas, young Queen, how ill you fare! If this your tender mother knew, her heart would surely break in two!"_

And there, the head hangs – Falada's head. It is a warning to passersby. She understands this. She understands it, but at the same time, she despises it. She feels anger at the abuse of a friend, she feels sadness at the death of a friend, she feels different. She is different. She can't see it. She can't sense it. But things change. She changes.

Tears.

She cries.

She grows.

Drying her tears on the hem of her shirt, she moves on, plods on; quietly, she passes beneath the arch, face cast down as if in prayer, Falada her sovereign god. Falada, whose glassy eyes watch in deathly stillness.

Her horse.

Her friend.

As she grows, her identity changes. The goose girl is no longer a princess in disguise. She has become the goose girl – she has grown to fit the shoes of one she might have scoffed at – certainly would have scoffed at – before. She has to grow to get there. She can't see it. All she sees is herself. A princess in disguise. Something that exists no longer. Something wizened by experience and quotidian life into a greater force.

Princesses never were meant to rule.

And she sees none of this.

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

--

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

The Goose Girl

A goose girl, yes, she is. She has become. But a goose girl, for all the innocence and frivolity lost, is still a girl. She still looks vainly at herself in what mirror a flat pond is. She still imagines could-have-beens, still sees the princess behind the dirt.

Sees her past.

Sees her could-have-beens. They are like forget-me-nots, or daisies…

"_He loves me, he loves me not."_

Not her story, but someone's. Someone's could-have-been.

Forget-me-nots.

Daisies.

There is the final difference between her and a goose girl: a goose girl dreams of princesses. This goose girl was one. She cannot dream of what she was – dreams are made only of life's silver linings, and she knows better than that through the only pathetic semblance of experience – of life – that she has felt.

She remembers.

It wasn't bad. It couldn't be. It was just that there are never enough silver linings for a whole life – and there are quite a few princesses.

Silver linings are always on the inside of something else.

Memories.

Childhood.

She sees them reflected in her own eyes. She sees her eyes in the pond. Past her own kneeling form, the long, green-gold grass waves in a delicate zephyr. Unceasingly watching the pool of water, she lets down her hair.

Its hue almost matches the grass.

The water ripples and splashes as her charges make their sloppy entrances, and the goose girl's reflection is lost to tiny whitecaps.

_Squawk._

_Splash._

They bicker.

They always do.

A form appears over her shoulder, only barely replicated in the sloshing water. Startled, she turns.

Chubby hands reaching for golden hair.

"Let me have some! Glittery!"

Young Curdken.

"_Wind wind, gently sway… blow Curdken's hat away. Let him chase o'er field and wold, 'til my locks of ruddy gold – now astray, and hanging down – be combed and plaited in a crown!"_

The wind shifts.

The goose girl is alone.

She picks up her crook, and she watches. This is her duty. This she has learned.

Hesitantly, she waits.

--

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

The Goose Girl

Three drops of blood. A source of power, for that is what lineage can be. A handkerchief, a token, hidden away in the recesses of her dress, yet loose. A symbol of love.

_Drip._

_Drop._

_Drip._

One finger, one stab, one knife. Three drops. One handkerchief. One waiting maid. One thirst. Two drinks. One fall. One current. One smile, one tear. One fading voice…

"_If your mother only knew, her heart would surely break in two."_

Eaten by the current and the water, it is Gone.

--

The goose girl discovers her loss, but the discovery brings no comprehension. Three drops of blood are, to her, nothing. They may be those of her mother, but her mother is – was – never embodied outside of herself. Most people are not. She sees not the power lost, she sees not a waiting maid's trickery, she sees simply where there were three drops of blood, and now, where there are not.

It is like an omen.

She imagines the handkerchief on its journey, wherever it may be. She sees it in her mind's eye. She sees someone finding it. Tucking it into a breast pocket. Washing out the stains – the blood.

_"'S a perfec'ly good han'kerchief, after all. It'd be a waste to throw it out. And these stains aren't so bad."_

She can almost hear it.

Finest cotton.

Finest lace.

Only the best for a princess.

She sees the stains coming out. She sees the handkerchief return from mud- and blood- stained to white. Pure white. Clean and starched.

_"See there – looks good as new. Why, it's such a fine han'kerchief! Must o' belong to a woman – perhaps even a noblewoman, by that lace. I'll give it ta Margie this Chris'mas, an' she'll be real happy."_

Her lips curve upward with this thought.

Second-hand goods.

Only now does she recognize their worth.

Everything is the same once it is washed, fixed. Everything is the same anyway.

Whenever she walks down the street, she takes second-hand steps. Or perhaps thousand-hand, or million-hand steps. However many people have walked past through the same spot, in the wake of eternity. She sees this.

She looks down at her apron. She feels the stories that have been embedded into the well-worn cotton.

They are warm. They are accessible.

--

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Two and two make four. Three and three make six. Four and four make eight. Secrets and magic make witch.

Running. Running. Running. _Secrets._

Hesitating. Hesitating. _Magic._

Gulping air. _Not a witch._

Curdken hurries. He does not know what to think. Goose girl. Witch? Magic. Hair… Wind. Hat… running. Faster. Catching up?

The king. The king will know what to do.

---

The goose girl dreams. She dreams the words that she may no longer speak, she dreams a story that has bound her by gods and the heavens. But at the same time, she fears.

Images play and replay themselves across the vellum of her mind. She sees the ax.

_Cut._

_Shatter._

She sees broken vessels pouring dark liquid.

_Splash._

She sees scalding words hanging in the air. She sees an arrangement she herself made at midnight, an almost holy pact to preserve the only one with the same words as she. She feels the head hanging over her as she steps, ghostly, beneath the arch.

Anger. Sadness. Empathy. Apathy. They play across her sleeping face, stepping on closed lids.

Now, the goose girl is flying, leaping.

Now, the wind unbraids her hair. She smiles.

Now, a man rises from gold sea below her. He is looking for a goose girl. Or a princess, he says. He seems to think that they are one and the same.

She laughs: does he not realize that the palace houses such a creature already? She points him on his way with a well-concealed giggle.

A crown, made of goldenrod.

A crown, made of wheat.

Woven together, on the crown of her head. She looks in the shallow pond for her reflection, but all she can see are minnows.

Eyes. Flutter.

Blackness. Stars.

Witching hour. Midnight, and awakened, the goose girl pinches her own arm, and feels no pain, for she is numbed by a cold sweat and dreams.

---

"_I will not work with her, for she does nothing but annoy me all the day long." _Curdken.

"_Pray tell." _The King.


End file.
